Congratulations to Theo+Theo partner James Theophane whos work for Toyota, Saatchi & Saatchi and Flinders University has won the much coveted Gold Creative Innovation Lion at this Cannes Lions.

The LandCruiser Emergency Network is a pioneering new technology that can deliver emergency communications to outback Australia via Toyota LandCruisers.

Over 65% of the entire Australian continent still receives no mobile signal, an area of mostly harsh Outback bigger than the entire European Union. Frequent dangers such as fire, flood, stranding, dangerous wildlife, and extreme weather are made far more hazardous by an almost complete lack of digital communications. At the same time, Australia is the world’s biggest market for LandCruisers. Due to their legendary toughness, durability and ability to go just about anywhere, LandCruisers are the only vehicle you’ll see in many rural and remote places. There are over half a million of them in a country of just 24m people.

The LandCruiser Emergency Network (L.E.N.) and device.The result was a simple, inexpensive, signal-providing device engineered to use a combination of Wi-Fi, UHF and Delay-Tolerant-Networking (DTN) technology to turn vehicles into communications hotspots each with up to 25km range.During emergencies, anyone within range can use the network to log a call or geo-tagged message straight from their ordinary mobile phone. Data is then securely passed between LandCruisers, on a store-and-forward basis, until it reaches a network base-station and first responders can be alerted.

The work has also been awarded a Gold Lion and Silver Lion in the Promo and Activation category it has also been featured in featured in Wired, Engadget, TechCrunch, PSFK and The Verge.